ROSIE ALEXANDER, ANNA-ELISABETH HOLM, DEIRDRE HANSEN AND KISTÂRA MOTZFELDT VAHL 5. CAREER GUIDANCE IN NORDIC SELF GOVERNING REGIONS Opportunties and Challenges ABSTRACT The Nordic self-governing regions (the Faroe Islands, Greenland and the Åland Islands) pose a specific context for careers guidance policy and practice. Characterised by their island topographies, small populations and historically minoritised languages, these regions have in recent years gained greater autonomy over their domestic affairs. As a result steps have been taken towards developing domestic careers guidance policy and practice suitable for their own territories. In this chapter case studies of two of these regions will be presented – Greenland and the Faroes – in order to explore the specific challenges and opportunities facing these communities. With both regions historically subordinate to the Danish crown, these communities have a shared inheritance in terms of education, economic and careers policy, and they also face shared challenges in terms of their distinctive labour markets, language contexts and concerns with migration. However, as this chapter will show the specific manifestation of these challenges, and responses to these challenges has differed between the communities. The findings demonstrate how the communities of Greenland and the Faroe Islands are developing approaches to careers guidance policy and practice which draw from existing Nordic approaches, and benefit substantially from Nordic co-operation, but which also challenge and develop their Nordic and specifically Danish inheritances to create distinctive new models. INTRODUCTION: NORDIC SELF-GOVERNING REGIONS The Nordic self-governing regions are distinctive within the Nordic region in terms of career guidance policy and practice, because their growing autonomy has resulted in a drive to create new territory-specific policy and systems. Historically, the three self-governing regions have different relationships with the wider Nordic context. The Åland Islands, situated in the Gulf of Bothnia, historically belong to Finland, but are Swedish speaking. Greenland (situated between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans) and the Faroes (situated in the North Atlantic) are both historically part of © ROSIE ALEXANDER, ANNA-ELISABETH HOLM, DEIRDRE HANSEN AND KISTÂRA MOTZFELDT VAHL, 2020 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004428096_005 This is an open access chapterRosie distributed Alexander, under Anna-Elisabeth the terms Holm, of t heDeirdre CC Hansen,BY-NC and 4.0 Kistâra License. Motzfeldt Vahl - 9789004428096 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 01:29:03PM via free access R. ALEXANDER ET AL. the Danish realm. All three regions are now identified as self-governing regions, with differing levels of autonomy in terms of their domestic affairs. The Nordic context of these regions is established not only through their historical relationships to the countries of Denmark, Finland and Sweden, but also through membership of the Nordic Council, with the Faroes and Åland joining in 1970 and Greenland 1984. Indeed, their influence within the Council has grown since the ‘Åland Document’ was adopted by the Ministers for Nordic co-operation in 2007 (Nordic Council, n.d., 2007). Through the Nordic Council the territories are engaged in various Nordic initiatives and co-operations. A key consideration in creating new systems and policies for careers guidance concerns the specific needs of the areas these systems serve. In this respect the context of the self-governing regions have some key features – most notably their island topographies, small populations and particular language contexts. These create specific labour market, education and cultural contexts, all of which can affect the career development experiences of individuals and potential policy and practice responses (Alexander & Hooley, 2018). In this chapter the experiences of two of the Nordic self-governing regions will be explored – Greenland and the Faroes. Comparing these two case studies is instructive, because both share a historical and on-going relationship with Denmark, and in many ways share cultural and political influences which are Danish. However, through exploring the case studies it is possible to show how the specific needs of these communities vary, as do the trajectories they are taking towards moving beyond their Danish inheritances and developing their own career guidance systems. This chapter will begin by exploring some of the contextual influences on career guidance in Greenland and the Faroe Islands, before moving on to considering case studies of the careers guidance systems in these territories and finishing with a discussion of the careers guidance practice and policy implications. GREENLAND AND THE FAROE ISLANDS: CONTEXT Both Greenland and the Faroe Islands are island communities. The Faroe Islands are a small North Atlantic archipelago situated about halfway between Iceland, Norway and Scotland, with a total area of about 1,400 square kilometres. Greenland is classified as the world’s largest island, having a total area of 2,127,600 square kilometres and covering an area of three climatic zones: high-arctic, low-arctic and sub-arctic. Despite differences in landmass, the populations of the areas are similar with a population in the Faroes of just over 51,000 and around 56,000 in Greenland. A very significant difference between the Faroe Islands and Greenland stems from the relative connectedness of the communities within these regions. In the Faroe Islands about 85% of the islands are well connected with roads, tunnels, bridges and subsea tunnels, while more peripheral areas are connected with ferries and 66 Rosie Alexander, Anna-Elisabeth Holm, Deirdre Hansen, and Kistâra Motzfeldt Vahl - 9789004428096 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 01:29:03PM via free access CAREER GUIDANCE IN NORDIC SELF GOVERNING REGIONS Figure 5.1. Members of the Nordic Council (by S. Solberg J., available from https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Location_Nordic_Council.svg, under license CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en) helicopters (Føroya Landsstýri, 2018). In Greenland, there are five municipalities, each with a regional main city, however there are no roads between the cities, with settlements only connected by sea and air traffic and digital communications. As a result, in Greenland some of the settlements could be said to be ‘islands’ within a larger island. In common with other island communities, the sea has a very significant impact on the economy and culture of both Greenland and the Faroes (Alexander, 2016; Hayfield, Olavsson, & Patursson, 2016; Hayward, 2012). The Faroese economy is still largely reliant on the fishing industry (including aquaculture), although there has been some diversification in recent times (Føroya Landsstýri, 2018). In Greenland, historically seal hunting formed a significant part of the economy, and although this has declined in recent years, fishing more broadly remains very significant, and fish is the main export of the country (Statistics Greenland, 2018b). Being small, island economies can be vulnerable to economic fluctuations, and classically for island economies ‘flexible specialisation is the watchword’: being responsive and 67 Rosie Alexander, Anna-Elisabeth Holm, Deirdre Hansen, and Kistâra Motzfeldt Vahl - 9789004428096 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 01:29:03PM via free access R. ALEXANDER ET AL. capitalising on opportunities as they arise, especially those potentials arising from global connectivity (King, 2009, p. 58). As with other island areas, both territories have pursued some diversification in industry in recent years, with tourism a notable growth industry for both regions. Migration is also a key feature of island communities (King, 2009), typically with emigration of young people due to the small labour markets of island communities and limited ability to provide a full range of higher education (Sultana, 2006). In the Faroes and Greenland the influence of migration – both emigration and immigration is also acute, and a much larger concern than in other Nordic countries. In other Nordic countries (apart from Norway) the proportions of young people leaving their home countries for educational purposes is below 5%, while this figure in the Faroe Islands has been above 60% for some decades (Reistrup & á Rógvi, 2012), and in Greenland recent figures show that 40% of higher education students leave Greenland to study elsewhere (Statistics Greenland, 2018a). In Iceland the figure is 25% but the vast majority of these return to Iceland after completing their education. The education system is a significant influence in terms of the career and migration routes of young people. In both Greenland and the Faroe Islands education more or less follows the Danish system. One of the key differences to the Danish system in the Faroes is that Faroese is the main spoken medium of education at all levels, including higher education. However, when reaching upper-secondary education about 80% of teaching materials are in Danish (Johannesarson, 2018). In Greenland the language context is more complex with Greenlandic having three main varieties which are all quite distinct from one another. In schools, children are taught Central West Greenlandic, as well as Danish, and some English. Developing fluency in multiple languages is a central part of the education system in both regions, and this fluency is also necessary for potential migration to other communities